


put your money where your mouth is (cash out, baby)

by susiecarter



Category: Gridlocked (2015)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Drunken Kissing, Extra Treat, Idiots in Love, Las Vegas Wedding, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 02:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16672654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: It's Brody's fault they end up in Vegas together, obviously.





	put your money where your mouth is (cash out, baby)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherryontop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryontop/gifts).



> I was just completely unable to resist that "Accidental Marriage - Getting Drunk and Waking Up Married" freeform, cherryontop! I hope you like this, and that you've had a great Tropefest. :D
> 
> Title from Katy Perry, because I had to.

 

 

It's Brody's fault they end up in Vegas together, obviously.

Not like it was David's idea. Took Brody at least an hour to talk him into it, and even that was an accident.

David hadn't meant to call him. Or had, but not to _talk_ to him. Brody's movie had finally premiered for real, that was all. And David wasn't going to be making any apologies for blowing Brody off all that time or anything. But he figured one call, just to congratulate Brody for not screwing up, wasn't going to make much difference.

One call. Brody was probably busy as hell, or at least that's what David had been figuring. He hadn't called David to leave another stupid voicemail in like three days. Odds were this was the best chance David was going to get to call him without worrying too much that he'd pick up. Leave _him_ a message, for once, and hang up, and that would be the end of it.

Except Brody had actually fucking answered. Had answered—had said David's name, sounding warm and a little smug, and somehow David hadn't managed to hang up before Brody had, inexplicably, worked the conversation around to David coming to Vegas.

 _Vegas_.

"Vegas," David had said flatly.

"Yeah! Come on, man. I'll pay for your flight and everything," Brody'd added, quick. "Bet you haven't taken time off in ages, except your medical leave or whatever. It'll be like a vacation. You don't have to worry about a single thing except getting your ass on the plane."

And David had sat there, thinking about what a fucking terrible idea it was but not saying so, for just a little too long.

"You owe me," Brody had said at last, because he'd never been any good at letting a silence stretch.

"I owe you," David had repeated.

"Making me give all that money back, dude!"

"I prevented you from committing a stupid and incredibly obvious crime," David had said slowly, "and _I_ owe _you_."

Brody had been quiet for a beat. "Well, okay," he'd said, "then—then let me _thank_ you, man."

"Thank me. By making me fly to Vegas to hang out with you."

But he'd fucked up; it hadn't had the bite it should have, and all Brody had done was laugh a little into his phone.

"Yeah. Yeah, come on. It'll be fun," and fun, David had thought, was about the last thing it was going to be, but somehow by the time they were saying goodbye, he hadn't quite told Brody no.

 

 

 

It wasn't going to be fun.

But David had gotten himself on the goddamn plane anyway, and Brody had paid for everything after all—even put David in first class, in a seat he actually fucking fit in.

And Brody had met him at the airport. Just Brody himself, no entourage, no cameras; he'd had on a baseball cap, gigantic fucking sunglasses with rainbow frames, and David had come off the plane and seen him there and rolled his eyes, which hadn't stopped Brody from grinning at him like an idiot. Grinning at him, and even—even hugging him, quick sudden press of Brody's warmth against him, Brody's arms around David's shoulders.

"Gave them the slip," he'd said with a shrug, when David had asked about the conspicuous lack of security guys or handlers or whatever.

David had raised an eyebrow at him. "Isn't that a little dangerous?"

And Brody had stared—actually tipped the sunglasses down his nose to blink at David over them, like the thought hadn't even occurred to him. "What? No way, man. You're here. I'm the safest I've been in months."

And now they're here, and the thing is—it isn't fun, exactly. David wouldn't use that word. But it's—it feels better than he'd thought it would. Maybe this _is_ why most people take vacation: this feeling, something in David's chest gradually unknotting itself, like he can finally breathe.

Of course Brody wants to go get drunk on stupidly expensive crap, and lose a bunch of money on blackjack, roulette, slot machines. But even that isn't so bad. David buys himself something a little harder, gives himself permission to sit back and nurse it a little, and keeps an eye on Brody. And Brody's stupid, hopeless enthusiasm isn't dented one bit when he finally does win, and David points out how much he blew trying.

"That's not the point, man," he insists, waving his chips in David's face. "The point is no matter how fucked the odds are, sometimes you still fucking win anyway. Sometimes you walk out with more than you had when you started, even if it cost you something."

David stares at him, and thinks about gunshots, old wounds, Korver's body falling; about walking out of there with Brody after. "Yeah," he says, and snags one of the chips out of Brody's hands, rubs his thumb across the face of it and tucks it in his pocket over Brody's laughing protests.

Because yeah. Yeah, sometimes you get motherfucking lucky, even when you don't deserve it.

They wander around longer than David really expected, and both of them maybe get a little drunker than David intended. It's just—it's just it is kind of fun, maybe.

Because the thing is that David ought to hate Vegas. Vegas is loud, Vegas is bright. Vegas is relentless, right up in his face all the time, never shuts up and never quits. And by all rights he ought to want to get the hell out of here and back to New York, but instead he finds himself thinking dimly that it's possible he has a type.

Somehow, after a lot more bad drinks and a few more slot machines—Brody's pulling the levers now mostly for the lights and noises, David suspects—they end up circling around to a halfway decent view of the Bellagio fountains. And David knows it's all of a piece, the cheap chintzy glitz hardly better or worse than the genuinely expensive waste, ten thousand lights and all that water just to give people something shiny to look at while they lose their money and make bad decisions.

But fuck, it's pretty. Like this, at night—on vacation, David thinks, and at the end of the first good day he's had in kind of a while: like this, it's fucking beautiful.

He finds himself glancing over at Brody next to him, a half-dozen faint reflected colors playing over Brody's face. And then suddenly, before David's entirely prepared for it, Brody's looking back at him.

"Seriously," Brody says after a moment, "it's—it's been great seeing you again, man." He stops and swallows, looks away, and for one long, incredibly weird second, David's left staring at his eyelashes. "I missed you," Brody adds, more quietly.

And David wants to say something, _you're an idiot_ or _go fuck yourself_ or _me too_ , except he can't; can't pick, can't get the words out, throat tightening without warning. He has to settle for gripping Brody's shoulder. Which is stupid, not enough—but Brody looks up at him again and smiles a little, so maybe it's okay anyway.

 

 

 

(David has a problem.

He doesn't know it until right then. But looking at Brody like this, touching him, after all that time apart—

The thing is, he had been hoping that ignoring Brody for so long would've killed the thing he'd felt taking root in him, after Korver.

He's always been a step behind it. He hadn't even noticed it back then, not right away. Not until he'd been out in that hallway with Jason, and heard that sound, and realized where it must have come from. And when he'd gone back into that room and found Brody alive instead of dead—it had been unmissable, in that moment.

Brody charging out from cover with a fucking broom or whatever, in defense of David, and the shot; well, there had been a lot going on right then, and David had had an asshole to kill. It had gotten lost. But standing there over Brody, seeing him wince, hearing him groan, and nothing else in the world right then except them—David felt it, then, and knew it for what it was.

And he'd known right away that it was stupid, hopeless. That he needed to get rid of it before it was—before it sank in any deeper, before it couldn't _be_ gotten rid of.

So he shut it up in there and left it to die, and figured that would do it.

Except it turns out that while he was busy ignoring it, pretending it wasn't there, hoping it was wasting away with neglect, it had been busy too. It had been grasping desperately after every sight of Brody on the TV, however brief; it had been drinking in the sound of Brody's voice, over and over, every one of those hundred goddamn messages he'd left David and David, like an idiot, fucking listening to them all.

And now, having Brody right here in front of him again—

Forget it. Forget it, he's fucked. It's ten feet tall, leaves spreading out and turned toward the sun, and even if David cut it down now, it would just grow half a dozen new baby trunks from the roots.)

 

 

 

It ought to be an easy mistake to avoid.

It's just that none of it seems like a problem while it's happening, that's all. They're working their way in the general direction of the hotel where Brody's got rooms, except they're doing it like it's a bar crawl, stopping anywhere that catches Brody's eye and buying a drink, downing it, and then on to the next.

But David's okay with that, because the booze is making everything he can't handle feel a little further away from him. Not gone, but less important—less important in general, and then also a lot less important than Brody next to him, stumbling a little and laughing; less important than the hand David's got on his back to steady him and hasn't taken off, less important than the way Brody hasn't moved out from under that hand.

They're barely a street away from the hotel when Brody tips over the line between happy-drunk and morose-drunk. He starts carrying on glumly, half into his own glass, about how this isn't going to last: how David's going to go back to New York after this, going to leave again, and fuck knows how long it'll take Brody to talk him into visiting again, and on and on.

Which is a little annoying, but still not a _problem_ exactly. It makes David feel older, but not in a bad way—just like he knows something Brody doesn't, and that he won't be able to explain it, that Brody's just going to have to figure it out on his own. But he pats Brody carefully on the shoulder and says, "For the best," anyway.

"What?"

"Got to leave sometime," David says with a shrug. "Got a job, got things to do. You and me both," he adds, because it's true. "Better go while you still wish I wouldn't, you know?"

"What?" Brody says again, blinking, and then sways in close in the booth and wraps his hand around the back of David's neck, gripping tight like it's emphasis. "No way, man. No way. Never. I love it, I love this—I want you around all the time."

"Right," David says. "You feel safer. I remember."

But Brody's shaking his head, insistent. "I mean, yeah, I do," he admits, "but that's not the point. That's not why I—I just miss you. Wish you were here. Like postcards, you know? Wish you were wherever I am."

And it doesn't feel like a problem, the way those words sound in Brody's voice, the way David can't stop hearing them even after Brody's done saying them. The way they end up sitting there staring at each other in the dimness doesn't feel like a problem, either.

Kissing Brody doesn't feel like a problem. The opposite, if anything: it's so easy. It's so easy to just lean in, to crowd him backward against the booth and hold him there and press their mouths together. Everything about it is easy, the way Brody opens up for it so readily and sucks David's tongue into his mouth, the sounds he makes in the back of his throat—that David can feel them just as well as he can hear them, thumb settling just beneath the line of Brody's jaw.

And after that—even the paperwork, the fact that there's somebody there when he kisses Brody again, the words. None of that feels like a problem, while it's happening. No one part of it, individually, is enough to make David's brain sit up and take notice.

Not until he wakes up in the morning, in some enormous soft bed he definitely isn't paying for, and reaches up to rub at his pounding head. Because then he ends up staring at the fat gleaming ring on his stupid fucking finger from two fucking inches away, and that, abruptly, feels like a _huge_ problem.

 

 

 

He's only got a few seconds to brace himself, because he can already feel Brody shifting beside him, turning over in the bed with a muffled little noise of protest. He hasn't even looked over, but there's zero doubt in his mind: it sounds like Brody, feels like Brody, and David's memory might be blurry but it's far from a black-out. Jesus, they—they really took advantage of the size of this goddamn bed, last night. Jesus.

David swallows and presses his hand over his eyes instead of just to his head, because one of them needs to have a grip and it probably won't be Brody. It's fine. Not a big deal. Shit happens; it's Vegas. It doesn't mean anything, and it isn't going to matter.

Except when Brody does go still next to David, go still and then sit up all at once and say, "Holy _shit_ ," he doesn't sound pissed off.

David risks a glance. Brody's staring down at his own hand, transfixed, and the look on his face is—

He twists to look at David, grabs for David's hand in a sudden clumsy lunge, and David's too surprised to do anything but let him. Brody's eyebrows are crawling up toward his hairline, and he's thumbing David's ring almost tentatively, like if he presses too hard maybe it'll pop like a bubble and vanish on him.

"Holy shit," he says again, almost softly. "Holy shit, you went for it."

David blinks. "Excuse me?" he says, except it's not really a question.

"Come on, man, it's you and me," Brody says, and David's halfway riled up, jaw tensing, defensive and off-balance because he's not sure what the hell that's supposed to mean, except Brody shakes his head and the next thing that comes out of his mouth smooths David's ruffled feathers right back down: "Like hell did I carry you in there handcuffed or anything. No way, you'd have kicked my ass." He laughs, quick and breathless, and shakes his head again. "Obviously if I got half a chance, I'd try to put a ring on it," he adds, absent, still staring down at their hands: pressed up right against each other, David's caught in both of Brody's, brand-new and most likely cheap-ass rings shining up clear. "I just didn't think you'd _let_ me. But you totally did. Holy shit."

He stops and bites at his mouth a little, and finally manages to jerk his eyes away from their hands and up to David. And David can't even begin to guess what the hell his own face might look like, but whatever his expression's doing, it makes Brody's mouth and gaze and everything just kind of soften a little, tentative—even careful, in a way Brody mostly isn't.

"You thought I was going to flip out, huh?" he murmurs. "Well, newsflash: I'm stupid, but I'm not that stupid. You're—" He shrugs a little, one-sided, suddenly awkward. "You're a catch, dude."

"Jesus Christ," David mutters, feeling his face heat.

"I mean, look," Brody says hurriedly, "I know this is—we haven't even been—we were pretty trashed. I'm not a complete asshole." He stops and bites his lip again, and all at once he's let go of David to rub at the back of his neck, gaze skittering off sideways. "Obviously you weren't planning to come out here and get hitched to some jackass whose calls you've been dodging. My net worth's gone up at least three figures since the last time I saw you, but I—you know better than anybody that I'm kind of a mess—"

"Shut up," David says.

And it turns out in the cold light of day it's—it's still pretty easy to grab Brody and kiss him. David tugs him in close, hand spread across the yoke of his shoulders, and sinks back down into the bed at the same time, drawing Brody in over one thigh, and yeah, convenient; they're both still naked.

Except this time they don't just keep rolling all the way to some tacky-ass Chapel of Love with an Elvis in front. The kiss breaks eventually, slow, and then it's just them, staring at each other in a huge white bed they've already fucked in at least twice. Brody's mouth is red and a little sore-looking, and he's wide-eyed and still kind of—kind of _awed_ , still like he can't believe it: like the odds were fucked and he knew it, and he fucking won anyway. Like he thinks he got motherfucking lucky.

And fuck, it does something to David in a serious way, Brody looking at him like that. Because David's nobody's prize, David's a goddamn mess himself, but Brody only seems to like him better for it.

Brody only seems to love him for it, maybe.

"Nobody talks shit about my husband," David says aloud.

And if it comes out a little quiet, a little hoarse, Brody doesn't call him on it—just grins at him, all bright and wobbly, and says, "Yeah, yeah, sure, tough guy," before leaning down to kiss him again.

 

 


End file.
